Postcard from Calais: Treading Water

HOME: Khodadadi squats in a shelter he has built in the coastal brush outside Calais

To Mohammad Reza Khodadadi, the tentlike structure hidden among thorn trees on the edge of Calais' beach is a haven  though, he hopes, a temporary one. Squatting on a weathered crate under plastic sheeting, he says: "Welcome. This is my home." If the British government has its way, the young Afghan's home will remain right here  on a patch of scrubland overlooking the English Channel. But Khodadadi has his heart set 34 km across the water in England, where, he says, his brother works in a Birmingham coffee shop and has vowed to find him a job. That his...